Creativity Quote by Grant Tinker

“I assume you know what to do with this. That’s why you were hired” is management as a dare: two short sentences that hand you power and deny you excuses in the same breath. It lands because it’s framed as trust, but it’s also an ultimatum. The first clause (“I assume”) sounds generous, even flattering, yet it quietly establishes a standard you’re expected to meet without guidance. The second sentence seals it with a taut logic: you’re not here to be taught, you’re here to deliver.

The intent is efficiency and accountability. Tinker is delegating not just a task, but the burden of interpretation. It’s the opposite of micromanagement: a clean transfer of ownership. The subtext, though, is where it bites. If you ask too many questions, you risk proving the assumption wrong. If you fail, the failure becomes personal: you weren’t misled, you were mis-hired.

Read in a creative-industry context, the line doubles as a statement about taste and instinct. In music and adjacent worlds, direction can be the enemy of originality; the best work often comes from people who can translate vague ambition into concrete choices. But it also reflects a harsher reality: institutions love “autonomy” when it means they can offload risk downstream. The quote works because it captures that knife-edge modern workplace promise: freedom, granted on the condition that you already know how to use it.